Remote control unit for activating and deactivating means for payment and for displaying payment status

ABSTRACT

The invention relates to a remote control unit for intelligent digital audiovisual reproduction systems, comprising storage means, payment means, a sound control circuit, display means and a metal chassis wherein said remote control unit comprises a distant radio frequency transmitter that is associated with a radio frequency receiver connected to the sound control circuit of the audiovisual reproduction system.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 14/064,455filed Oct. 28, 2013, which is a continuation of application Ser. No.13/195,168 filed Aug. 1, 2011, which is a continuation of applicationSer. No. 11/907,880 filed Oct. 18, 2007, which is a continuation ofapplication Ser. No. 09/357,764 filed on Jul. 21, 1999, which claimsforeign priority to French Application No. 9809351 filed Jul. 22, 1998,the entire contents of each of which are hereby incorporated byreference in this application.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a remote control unit for intelligentdigital audiovisual reproduction systems, also called jukeboxes.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Remote control systems are known in the prior art that use infraredtechnology to control a device. These systems comprise a transmitterlocated on the remote control unit and a receiver located on the device.The use of infrared rays requires the transmitter to be pointed towardsthe receiver on the device.

OBJECT AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The object of the present invention is to overcome the drawbacks of theprior art by offering a remote control unit that is user-friendly andsecure.

This object is achieved by the fact that the remote control unit forintelligent digital audiovisual reproduction systems, comprising storagemeans, payment means, a sound control circuit and display means, whereinthe remote control unit comprises a radio frequency transmitter that isassociated with a radio frequency receiver connected to the soundcontrol circuit of the audiovisual reproduction system.

According to another characteristic, the remote control unit has a codethat is stored by a learning procedure by the audiovisual reproductionsystem.

According to another characteristic, at least one audiovisualreproduction system receives a remote control code from the centralserver that is connected to the reproduction system.

According to another characteristic, a function of the remote control isto disactivate or activate the audiovisual reproduction system and themeans of payment.

According to another characteristic, disactivating the means of paymenttriggers an operator-programmed message to be displayed on theaudiovisual reproduction system display means.

According to another characteristic, a function of the remote controlenables the audiovisual reproduction system to be credited with a creditequivalent to the selection of at least one song; the maximum number ofcredits being stored on storage means of the reproduction system.

A second object of the invention is to offer a learning procedure of thecode of the remote control unit of the invention using an audiovisualreproduction system.

This object is achieved due to the fact that the learning procedurecomprises the following steps: a step in which the audiovisualreproduction, system is set to the learning mode, a step of using theremote control unit close to the audiovisual reproduction system, inthis operating mode the audiovisual reproduction system waits for atleast one remote control identification code, a step of storing theremote control identification code on the storage means of thereproduction system.

According to another characteristic, the learning mode is included inthe operating system of the audiovisual reproduction system.

According to another characteristic, use of the remote control unitcauses it to transmit a signal containing an identification code that iscontained in the remote control memory.

According to another characteristic, the step of storing comprises therecognition of an identification code in a signal transmitted by theremote control unit.

Other advantages and advantages of the present invention will be betterunderstood from the following detailed description referring to theattached drawing.

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of an intelligent digital audiovisualreproduction system of the prior art.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

The sole FIGURE shows the audiovisual reproduction system described ininternational patent application WO 96/12257. Preferably, but in anon-limitative way, this audiovisual reproduction system uses theequipment parts that are numbered and referred to below.

The central processing unit (1) is a system that is compatible with ahigh-performance PC. An intel pentium-type system that has storage meansand the following minimum characteristics should be used to implementthe invention: compatibility with the local Vesa bus, processor cachebuffer: 256 Kbytes, RAM: 32 Mbytes, high-performance serial and parallelports, SVGA or similar microprocessor graphic adapter, SCSI/2 or similarbus controller self-powered static RAM.

Any similar CPU with equivalent or better performance characteristicsmay be used in the invention.

This CPU controls and manages a sound control circuit (5), atelecommunications control circuit (4), an input control circuit (3), amass storage control circuit (2) and a display means control circuit(6). The display means are mainly composed of a high definition, lowradiation, non-interleafed SVGA-type flat screen video monitor (62).This monitor is used to reproduce images, for example the album coversof musical selections, graphics or video clips.

Storage modules (21) are also included as storage means using SCSI-typehigh-speed, high-capacity hard disks and are associated with the storagemeans already present in the CPU. These modules are used to storeaudiovisual information.

A high-speed (28.8 kbps) telecommunications modem (41) adapter is builtin to allow connection with an audiovisual information distributionnetwork controlled by a central server.

In order to reproduce the sound information of the musical selectionsthe system comprises loud speakers (54) that receive the signal from atuner-amplifier (53) connected to a music synthesizer-type electriccircuit (5). Said electric circuit is built to accommodate a largenumber of input sources while having an outlet that provides CD (compactdisc)-type quality, such as the sound-card type microprocessormultimedia audio adapter.

Using the input control circuit (3), the audiovisual reproduction systemcontrols a touch screen (33) that includes a panel covering the glassand that uses “advanced surface wave technology” as well as an AT-typebus controller. This touch screen enables various selection informationused by the customer to be displayed on the video monitor (62) or on atelevision screen (61). It also displays management control informationused by the manager or the owner of the system. It is also used formaintenance repairs in combination with an external keyboard (34) thatcan be connected to a system with a suitable keyboard connectorcontrolled by a keyed lock (32) via the interface circuit (3).

The interface circuit input (3) also controls remote control assembly(31).

An audiovisual payment device (35) is also connected to the interfacesurface input (3). It is also possible to use any other device toreceive any method of payment by coins, notes, tokens, chip cards orcombinations of methods of payment.

The system is housed in the steel chassis or frame.

In addition to these parts, a cordless microphone (55) is connected tothe sound controller (5), which transforms said audiovisual reproductionsystem into a powerful announcement and information system intended forthe public or possibly for a karaoke machine. Similarly, the system canuse a cordless loud speaker system.

The remote controlled assembly (31) enables the manager, for examplefrom behind the bar, to access and operate various controls, such as:the microphone on/off control, the loud speaker muting control, thevolume control the control for canceling music currently being played.

The operating system has been designed around a library of tools andservices that are particularly directed toward the audiovisual field ina multimedia environment. Advantageously, this library includes a highperformance multi-task operating system that effectively authorizes thesimultaneous implementation of multiple code fragments. Therefore, thisoperating system is used, in an organized way that avoids any conflict,for rival implementations, operations implemented on display means,sound reproduction means and for controlling telecommunicationconnections through a distribution network. Furthermore, this operatingsystem is extremely flexible.

The compressed and digitized audiovisual data is stored in storage means(21).

The library of tools and services comprises a first module, referred toas SSM, that is a start-up module for the system. This module onlyprovides a single service, consequently it is automatically charged whenthe system is powered-up. The system goes directly into the “in service”mode of the module referred to as RMM if the system is started up usinga correct recorded number.

The RMM module is the “in service” mode module, the operating mode whichthe system enters as soon as the recorded number has been validated. Inthis mode the system is ready to implement any requests that can betriggered by any of a number of predefined operations, such as:customers touching the screen: when a customer or user touches thescreen, the system transfers control of the foreground session to theCBSM module that controls the customer selection and exploration mode,the telecommunications network call request server: when the systemdetects a loop on the telephone line it transmits a backgroundasynchronous procedure: the TSM module telecom service mode, receiving aremote control signal: when an order is received it is processed in abackground session by the SMM system control module. However, theforeground session remains available for other operations.

The system remains in the “in service” mode until one of theabove-mentioned operations is implemented.

The SMM module is the system control module. The module is used toimplement operations that order the system to accept an input requestedby a remote control device, these operations being immediately processedwithout canceling the procedure currently being carried out. A verylarge number of such operations are possible, of which only a few,non-limitative operations are listed below: volume adjustment of theselections played, volume adjustment of the auxiliary source played,microphone on/off control adjustment of the microphone volume, balanceadjustment of left and right channels control of the bass frequencylevel, control of the treble frequency level, control for canceling orskipping a musical selection track, control for panoramic, zoom in andzoom out effects, triggering of software program reset.

The TSM module is the telecommunications service mode module between thecentral server and the audiovisual reproduction system. This module isused to control all the control services available on the distributionnetwork. All the telecommunication tasks are controlled as backgroundtasks of the system. These tasks only ever use the processing time thatremains once the system has completed all the foreground tasks.Therefore, when the system is busy with a high-priority task, thetelecommunication-tasks automatically reduce the demands on theresources of the system and use any processing time the microprocessorleaves available.

The remote control unit according to the invention constitutes theremote control assembly of the audiovisual reproduction system. Theremote control unit according to the invention is a remote control unitthat uses a radio frequency transmitter. The reproduction systemcomprises a radio frequency receiver that is advantageously located onthe sound control circuit (5). Advantageously, the remote control unitcomprises fastening means that connect it to a component, for examplethe bar, which is not necessarily directed towards the reproductionsystem. The use of radio frequencies does not require the transmitter tobe directed towards the receiver. Therefore, this characteristic avoidsany deterioration due to the operations involved in directing the remotecontrol unit toward the audiovisual reproduction system.

The remote control unit has a code in order for an audiovisual system tobe customized to a particular remote control. This code is in the formof an address constituted by a DIP switch. When the remote control unitis used the signal it transmits comprises a first data item thatcontains the code and a second data item that contains the code of thekey that has been used. The remote control identification code is storedby the audiovisual reproduction system when the remote control unit isfirst used, according to a special learning procedure. The procedurecomprises several steps.

In a first step the audiovisual reproduction system is set to thelearning mode. This learning mode consists in implementing a sub routineof the library of tools and services of the operating system of thereproduction system. This procedure is triggered by lightly touching aspecial button that is displayed on the screen by the display means.When the operating system is in this mode it is ready to receive aremote control code to allow the reproduction system to only react whenthe remote control is actuated, following certain operations.Advantageously, the remote control unit comprises a specific key thattriggers a signal being transmitted, said signal comprising the codestored in the memory. In a step of using the remote control unit theremote control unit transmits the identification code in the signal whenit is used. In a step of storing, the audiovisual reproduction systemstores the remote control identification code in its storage means. Thelearning mode of the reproduction system enables it to recognize and tostore the code in the signal transmitted by the remote control unit. Atthe end of this step the reproduction system returns to the “in service”mode. Therefore, this special learning mode eliminates the need topreprogram the remote control code in the audiovisual reproductionsystem. Furthermore, once the remote control code has been stored by areproduction system, every subsequent time the remote control is used,the operating system verifies the identification code of the remotecontrol unit that has just transmitted a signal containing the storedcode. If the two codes are identical the function that corresponds tothe code of the pressed key will be implemented. If the two codes arenot identical there will be no response. Advantageously, the remotecontrol code is stored in an integrated circuit (I button) that is onlypowered when an operation is implemented and that is capable of storingserial information in a nonvolatile memory.

Advantageously, a second code of a second remote control unit is storedby one audiovisual reproduction system. This second code can betransmitted to each audiovisual reproduction system using the centralserver and the distribution network to which the audiovisualreproduction system is connected via the telecommunication modem (41).

The remote control unit according to the invention enables certainactions to be implemented on the audiovisual reproduction system usingparticular keys and functions controlled by the SMM module. A firstfunction, that is effected using a remote control key, is to disactivatethe reproduction system and the payment means. Dis-activating thereproduction system prevents any payment means, such as tokens, coins,notes, chip cards etc. from being inserted. Advantageously, theaudiovisual reproduction system display screen displays a message whilethe system is disactivated, for example to inform the user that theaudiovisual reproduction system is not available. Advantageously, themessage can be operator-programmed by the hirer of the audiovisualreproduction system. The reproduction system and the payment means arealso brought back into service using either the same key or a differentkey on the remote control unit.

A second function of the remote control unit is to be able credit theaudiovisual reproduction system with a value equivalent to at least onesong. The number of songs is updated each time the second function isused and each time an operator modifies the value of said number. Thissecond function enables, for example, the manager of a bar in which theaudiovisual reproduction system is installed to provide his customerswith at least one selection without him having to go to the reproductionsystem and without having to carry out complicated operations.

The remote control unit according to the invention may be seen to bemore user-friendly as it is not necessary for it to be pointed towardsthe audiovisual reproduction system. Furthermore, it is possible for itto be fastened, for example to the bar, thereby avoiding the remotecontrol unit becoming lost or broken. The code learning mode avoids aremote control unit having to be associated with a reproduction systemduring manufacture in a plant. This simplifies stock management. Theadditional remote control unit functions also simplify use of theaudiovisual reproduction system.

Other modifications available to those skilled in the art can clearly beincluded in the invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A jukebox system, comprising: at least onejukebox device, wherein the at least one jukebox device includes a firstprocessing system including at least one processor, a storage device forstoring audiovisual information reproducible by the at least one jukeboxdevice in response to user requests, an audio system for playing audio,a display configured to display video, and a communication systemconfigured to enable the at least one jukebox device to communicatethrough an audiovisual distribution network; and a server remote fromthe at least one jukebox device, the server being configured to provideservices to the at least one jukebox device, wherein the server isconfigured to communicate with each said jukebox device through thenetwork; wherein each said jukebox device has at least one remotecontrol device associated therewith, each said remote control devicecomprising a second processing system including a processor configuredto control the respective remote control device to at least: store aremote control identification code identifying the respective remotecontrol device; and transmit a control signal from the respective remotecontrol device to its associated jukebox device, the control signalcomprising the stored remote control identification code and a key codecorresponding to a controllable feature of the associated jukeboxdevice; and wherein the first processing system of each said jukeboxdevice is configured to control the respective jukebox device to atleast: receive at least one control signal from its associated remotecontrol device, each the control signal comprising a remote controlidentification code identifying the associated remote control device anda key code corresponding to a controllable feature of the jukeboxdevice; recognize each said received control signal based on its remotecontrol identification code; and execute the corresponding controllablefeature on the jukebox device based on the key code of each the receivedcontrol signal after the control signal is recognized.
 2. The jukeboxsystem of claim 1, wherein the second processing system of each saidremote control device is further configured to control the respectiveremote control device to transmit a learning signal comprising thestored remote control identification code without a key code, after apredetermined key of the remote control device is actuated.
 3. Thejukebox system of claim 2, wherein the first processing system of eachsaid jukebox device is further configured to control the respectivejukebox device to: receive a learning signal comprising a remote controlidentification code without a key code from a remote control deviceafter a learning mode is triggered on the respective jukebox device;obtain the remote control identification code from the received learningsignal; and store the obtained remote control identification code on thejukebox device.
 4. The jukebox system of claim 3, wherein the learningmode is triggered by touching a predetermined button on the screen ofthe jukebox device.
 5. The jukebox system of claim 3, wherein the firstprocessing system of each said jukebox device is further configured tocontrol the respective jukebox device to recognize each said receivedcontrol signal by matching the remote control identification of thecontrol signal with the remote control identification code stored on therespective jukebox device.
 6. The jukebox system of claim 1, wherein thecontrollable feature relates to jukebox device deactivation.
 7. Thejukebox system of claim 1, wherein the controllable feature relates tojukebox device activation.
 8. The jukebox system of claim 1, wherein thecontrollable feature relates to payment device activation.
 9. Thejukebox system of claim 1, wherein the controllable feature relates topayment device deactivation.
 10. The jukebox system of claim 1, whereinthe controllable feature relates to providing credits to the jukeboxdevice.
 11. The jukebox system of claim 1, wherein the controllablefeature is on/off control of a microphone.
 12. The jukebox system ofclaim 1, wherein the controllable feature relates to microphone volumecontrol.
 13. The jukebox system of claim 1, wherein the controllablefeature left/right channel balance.
 14. The jukebox system of claim 1,wherein the controllable feature is bass frequency level.
 15. Thejukebox system of claim 1, wherein the controllable feature is treblefrequency level.
 16. The jukebox system of claim 1, wherein thecontrollable feature relates to cancellation of a currently playingsong.
 17. The jukebox device of claim 1, wherein the first processingsystem of each said jukebox device is further configured to control therespective jukebox device to display a message after the controllablefeature corresponding to the key code of each the received controlsignal is executed on the respective jukebox device.
 18. A method ofoperating a jukebox device in connection with a remote control device,the jukebox device comprising at least one processor and a display, themethod comprising: receiving at least one control signal from the remotecontrol device, each said control signal comprising a remote controlidentification code identifying the remote control device and a key codecorresponding to a controllable feature of the jukebox device;recognizing each said control signal based on its remote controlidentification code; and executing the corresponding controllablefeature on the jukebox device based on the key code of the controlsignal after the control signal is recognized.
 19. The method of claim18, wherein the controllable feature relates to jukebox deviceactivation/deactivation.
 20. A jukebox device having an associatedremote control device, the jukebox device comprising: at least oneprocessor; and a display; wherein the jukebox device, under control ofthe at least one processor, is configured to: receive at least onecontrol signal from the remote control device, each said control signalcomprising a remote control identification code identifying the remotecontrol device and a key code corresponding to a controllable feature ofthe jukebox device; recognize each said control signal based on itsremote control identification code; and execute the correspondingcontrollable feature on the jukebox device based on the key code of eachthe control signal after the control signal is recognized.